A Happy Old Age is a message of meditation based on the Bible and written by Ashton Oxenden (20 September 1808 — 22 February 1892) was Bishop of Montreal. Born 20 September 1808, at Broome Park, Kent, he was the fifth son of Sir Henry Oxenden (1756—1838), 7th Baronet Oxenden, of Broome Park;
Commissioner of Dover Harbour. His mother, Mary, was the daughter of Colonel John Graham (1723—1789), of St. Lawrence House, near Canterbury; former Lieutenant governor of Georgia. Educated at Ramsgate and at Harrow School, Oxenden matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 9 June 1826; graduated B.A. 1831, M.A. 1859, and was created D.D. 10 July 1869.
In December 1833, he was ordained to the curacy of Barham, Kent, where he introduced weekly cottage lectures. In 1838, he resigned his charge, and during the following seven years was incapacitated for work by continuous ill-health. From 1849 to 1869 he was rector of Pluckley with Pevington, Kent, and in 1864 was made an honorary canon of Canterbury Cathedral. At Pluckley he first commenced extemporaneous preaching, and wrote the Barham Tracts.
In 1864, Oxenden married, on 14 June, Sarah (b. 1828), daughter of Joseph Hoare Bradshaw (1784—1845), a London banker and a grandson of Samuel Hoare. The couple would have a daughter, Mary Ashton Oxenden, who married in 1891 Charles John Wood (1862—1902), the youngest son of Lt.-General Thomas Wood (1804—1872) M.P., of Gwernyfed Park, Breconshire.
